CHAPTER 10

"Sasuke, I can feel you staring into my face, you know."

This was their second session, and she had been probing into his nerves for quite some time through chakra. However, whenever she opened her eyes to write down notes, she saw Sasuke's eyes staring unwaveringly at her face. "If you're bored, you can read a book or something."

She had to admit that it was kind of unnerving to have him staring at her for so long.

"You have scars on your face."

When Sakura heard Sasuke's words, she couldn't really think of anything to do other than blink blankly at him. "I know."

It was then she noticed that Sasuke's face was as porcelain and perfect as it had been seven years ago. He would have been a pretty girl, Sakura found herself thinking. She then pictured the scowl Sasuke direct toward her if she ever shared that particular thought. She smiled to herself.

Sasuke raised an eyebrow at her, silently questioning what she was smiling at. Though his scowl would have been amusing, Sakura decided to keep that thought to herself – for now. "You were looking at my scars?" She asked instead of answering his nonverbal question.

"I thought you could heal."

Sakura willed herself from slapping Sasuke's head like she would have done to Naruto. "I can," she said with measured patience, "but I got these scars on my face when I first started training with Tsunade-sama, and I didn't really know how to heal yet back then. And it's not like I was going to go to the hospital or bother shishou for these kinds of cuts."

Sakura closed her notepad. "Okay, I think that's all for today. Oh, hey, I heard Tsunade-sama's letting you spar with Naruto tomorrow."

The long process of calming down the other Kages was now drawing to a close. As of tomorrow, Sasuke's quasi-house arrest ban would be lifted, and he would be allowed to train. Naruto had burst into Sakura's office excitedly earlier that day, screaming with joy about his plans to "crush" Sasuke at their sparring session tomorrow.

Sakura was glad that Sasuke would be able to train now. She knew that he was getting irritated and anxious with sitting in his apartment all day. "Come see me in the hospital after you and Naruto train, okay? I don't imagine you two sparring would end nicely on either of your bodies."

She was making significant progress on her work load, and was actually hopeful that she wouldn't have as much to do tomorrow at all. She could see the light at the end of the paper work-filled tunnel, and it put her in a good mood.

Sasuke scoffed. "The dobe is the one who'll need to go to the hospital, not me."

"You know, Naruto said the same thing about you." Sakura laughed.

The next day, Sakura regretted laughing off both of Naruto's and Sasuke's comments about putting the other one in the hospital when Kakashi appeared in her office to inform her that the two boys did indeed need a medic, but weren't exactly in the best conditions to transport themselves to the hospital from the training grounds.

"What the hell is wrong with you two?" Sakura growled at Naruto and Sasuke when she saw them. She quickly scanned the two bruised and battered boys with her eyes and could tell that the two definitely had broken ribs – among other things – judging from their harsh breathing patterns. The two were currently lying down on the grass, and the training ground was pretty much destroyed.

"Sakura-chan," Naruto panted out with difficulty, "I definitely won!"

"You wish." Sasuke spat out, also with difficulty.

Sakura shook her head. "Sparring doesn't mean beating the bloody daylight out of each other, you idiots."

Sakura saw that Sasuke was definitely not pleased to be called an idiot, but he couldn't really do anything but glare at her in his state.

"And Kakashi!" Sakura turned around to the silver-haired jonin, who flinched upon being called. "You should have stopped them instead of being too busy buried in that stupid book of yours. Don't even try to deny it." She added as Kakashi opened his mouth to protest. He promptly closed it and did his best to look remorseful – and failed.

Sighing, Sakura turned her attention on the two boys that were stretched out on the ground – which had seen better days. The terrain of the field looked significantly different now than Sakura remembered it. "I liked this training field." She muttered to herself as she got down to do an overall examination of the boys to make sure that none of their injuries were particularly life threatening. To her relief, while they did have many broken bones and ribs, the injuries weren't dire. "Do yourselves a favor and try to stay out of Tsunade's way for a while. If she found out that you guys beat each other to this state for your little 'sparring' session, you might not ever be allowed to spar with each other again. I'm not going to heal the bones fully; it's really best to let them heal completely on their own, so I'm just going to restore them to their functional states, but you should both take it easy for the next couple of days."

She healed Naruto first, then Sasuke, mainly because Sakura knew that Naruto would whine more than Sasuke if the blonde were the one who was left in pain longer. After being healed, both of the boys were able to get up and move around, but Sakura definitely saw them wincing a bit with some of the movements.

Sakura sighed outwardly, but inside, she was happier than she had been in months. Seeing Naruto and Sasuke being so idiotically typical together brought back memories of Team 7 in their genin days.

A week passed by. Sakura was still mostly at the hospital, but her work load was getting pretty manageable now. She was also able to make sense of most of the Sharingan's effects on the eyes' nerves now, meaning that she would soon be able to start working on ways to improve the eyes' functions, as opposed to merely studying its nature and effects on the body.

"Hey, Forehead," came a voice from Sakura's office doorway, "Tsunade-sama said I would find you here."

"Way to come see me two whole days after your mission, Pig." Sakura put her pen down and swiveled her chair to face the doorway. "How was it, anyway? You didn't bully Shikamaru too much, I hope. Temari could kick your ass, you know."

Ino snorted. "Chyeah, I'd like to see her try." Ino lifted herself casually up on Sakura's desk and took a seat there. She thumbed through Sakura's pile of work. "So." Ino played absently with the papers. "Sasuke's back, huh."

Sakura nodded. "Have you seen him yet?"

"Yeah. Shika, Chouji, and I ran into Naruto and Sasuke in the training grounds. And Team Guy was with them, too." Ino replied. She finally looked up at Sakura. "How is he?"

"Well, you said you saw him." Sakura frowned. "Why, did something happen?"

Ino waved her hand, indicating a negative. "No, it was… fine, actually. He seemed fine. It's just weird, having him back after all these years."

Sakura laughed. "I know. But I could get used to it. I mean, he's still not a talker or anything by any means, and doesn't really socialize well… but it's nice having him back. It makes Naruto really happy."

Ino looked at her friend. "And what about you? Does it make you happy, too?"

Ino's question caught Sakura off guard. Was she happy? She couldn't remember the last time she had a full night's rest or didn't feel tired. She was still working over twelve hours a day in the hospital, and she didn't get to see her friends as often as she would have liked.

And yet, Sakura found that, deep inside, she really was happy – her friend that she loved like a brother had his brother back, and both of them were alive and well. She had been so afraid for Team 7 for years, and the fear had only increased when Asuma was killed. Even though Sasuke hadn't been in Konoha for years, Sakura had always known that, somewhere out there, he was alive. When Sakura saw how empty Team Asuma was without their sensei, and how angry and sad Ino had been, she became so afraid that that would be Team 7's story, too – that her team would never be complete again.

But after all these years, her team was once again in the same village. They were safe and together.

So yes, Sakura was happy. Happier than she had been in years, even if she was more tired than she ever had been.

"Yeah, Ino. It makes me happy, too."

Ino grinned at her best friend. "Good."

"Huh. Well, at least nothing seems broken this time… I'd call that a progress." Sakura teased.

She was, once again, at Sasuke's place. She had heard from Tsunade that most of Konoha 11 and Sasuke had been sparring earlier that day together. Sakura had a lot of work at the hospital that day, and she took it as a good sign that none of them came into the hospital and that she wasn't called to the training grounds.

Sasuke shot Sakura a glare for her teasing tone, but it was met only with laughter on Sakura's end as she scribbled some notes down in her notepad. Sakura thought back to her twelve-year-old self and how devastated she would have been to receive that glare.

Change wasn't all that bad, after all.

"Did Lee challenge you to spar with him? I heard he was all excited to prove that 'hard work beats talent' after all these years." Sakura asked good-naturedly.

"Hn." Sasuke gave his trademark response. "He got slower."

Sakura gave him an exasperated look. "No, he didn't, Sasuke. It's just that you've gotten too damn fast." From his remarks, she could picture the outcome of the spar between Lee and Sasuke – and she could also picture a determined Lee doing something ridiculous, like sprinting through Konoha five hundred times on his hands to push himself further after the loss. I guess I'll be seeing Lee in the hospital soon, Sakura mused drily to herself. "I wish I could go to the training grounds… I haven't trained in so long. Or gone on real missions." She sighed wistfully.

"You don't like being a medic?"

Sakura was always surprised to hear a question from Sasuke, especially if the question was asking something about herself. "No, I do. I like healing. It's a lot better than killing." She paused. "That's why I resisted joining ANBU for so long."

From Sasuke's expression, Sakura could tell that Sasuke was surprised. She felt both pleasure and bitterness from his surprise – pleasure because she liked that she had managed to surprise the ever-stoic Uchiha.

And bitterness that he hadn't been around for the past seven years to know that she was worthy of being in the prestigious, elite group of shinobi.

But Sakura quickly shrugged the bitterness off – he didn't really know her nineteen-year-old self yet. She couldn't possibly expect him to have a higher expectation of her than her genin days had proved her to be.

For that reason, she offered Sasuke an explanation. Because she wanted him to know the present Sakura – she didn't want to live in the past anymore.

"Ibiki was pretty persistent about me joining. He said it would be a lot easier for me to treat the ANBU members if I joined myself, since I wouldn't have to play around the whole anonymity thing with the members that were brought to me to be treated, and he really wanted more medics. Offered to sponsor and train me for the exams himself, actually."

Sakura caught Sasuke's pointed stare that was directed at her upper arm – it was free of the swirly ANBU tattoo.

"I didn't fail, if that's what you're asking." Sakura said quietly. She wondered if there would be a way for her to smash a mountain with her bare fist in front of Sasuke without making it seem like she was showing off. "I got Tsunade to get Ibiki off my back. That was the third and last request I made of shishou." Sakura added the last bit as if she was talking to herself rather than Sasuke.

"What were the first two?"

Sasuke didn't really know why he kept asking Sakura questions. He usually wasn't a very curious person, especially regarding the weakest member of his former team.

Or was she the formerly weakest member of his former team? Sasuke knew it was foolish of him to think that Sakura wouldn't have changed in the span of seven years, yet he never really gave much thought to what the grown-up version of the kunoichi would be like during his years away from Konoha.

He could now begin to see that she was almost a completely different girl than the one he had left behind on the bench all those years ago.

"My first request to shishou was for her to take me as her apprentice." Sakura replied simply. "My second request... was for her to step down from her position as Hokage on her terms."

"Meaning?"

"Meaning that she wouldn't wait around for death to find her before she stepped down – like the Third did. I made that request the night Naruto beat Madara. I think," Sakura paused, then went on thoughtfully, "shishou and I both knew that Naruto would become the Hokage even before he beat Madara and became an official hero. But – I don't know, something about that moment when everyone was cheering for him made me think about what his Hokage inauguration would be like. And I knew that I wouldn't want that occasion to have any bad ties to it – such as shishou having died right before it. So I told Tsunade-sama that I hope she can have the foresight to know when her time was up."

"So you think the dobe's actually going to become the Hokage after her?" Sasuke found himself asking. The blonde idiot had been shouting about wanting to become the Hokage for over a decade now.

"I don't think it, Sasuke. I know it." As Sakura said these words, her face broke out into a smile – and this time, it wasn't a smile imbedded with tiredness. It was a genuine smile, the smile that radiated the kind of innocence Sasuke hadn't seen in a long time.

How was it that she could smile like that after everything she'd been through? Sasuke knew that Sakura must have seen many deaths by now – she had been a shinobi for years, and had lived through the Fourth Great Shinobi War. She was also a medic – she never seemed to leave that goddamned hospital if she could help it, and people often died in hospitals.

Yet when she smiled like that, Sasuke felt as if she was as untainted as the day he had met her in the Academy, shortly after his family's death.

He had hated her smile back then. He couldn't stand anyone's innocence. After all, he had been forced to grow up overnight. It wasn't fair that others got to keep their childhoods, he had bitterly thought.

But now, thirteen years afterward, Sasuke found that he was inexplicably drawn to that same innocence that he had condemned even as a child himself.

Sasuke wondered what had changed in him since then.

Sakura realized that it had gotten late. "Oh, sorry. I've been babbling for a while now, I think." She got up. "But before I go, Sasuke, I heard from Tsunade-sama that you might be going out on missions soon. She's going to be keeping Team Kakashi as a permanent team if possible for the foreseeable future, so you'll be assigned in my place. Sai had to be called for a back-to-back solo mission, so he's still gone, but once he gets back, he'll be your teammate too." Sakura frowned a little to herself as she tried to picture what Sai would say to Sasuke upon meeting him – the former ROOT member was nothing if not unpredictable in his social interactions. "Anyway, what I wanted to tell you was for you to come see me before your mission when you do get it. I'll relieve the built-up tension around your eyes just in case you have to use the Sharingan during the mission. And if you do use it, make sure to come see me afterwards, too. I can't have you undoing my progress on your eyes, you know." She teasingly wagged a finger at him.

"Hn." Sasuke grunted noncommittally, but that was good enough for Sakura. Language barriers, she told herself as she inwardly shook her head at the stubborn and proud Uchiha's way of giving affirmative answers.

Some things never changed.

A/N: Thank you to everyone who has reviewed so far! I am equally grateful and appreciative of all of you, but I just wanted to single out a couple reviewers so that I can answer a few things that they have specifically addressed in my writing:

Dear Anon that has pointed out the nature of the Sharingan: I'm sorry, I haven't really stuck to the original on the fact that the EMS doesn't seem to damage the eyes. A fanfic writer's gotta take some liberties, after all :D I hope you can look beyond that!

Dear the Tum Tum Tree: Thanks for your in-depth criticism! I wanted to address all the things that you brought up. Firstly, about me creating dramatic moments, then the tension becoming lost – I'm sorry, I guess that's just my writing style, haha. I like an introspective view rather than a dialogue, but perhaps I can work on that for the future. Second, about the particulars of Sakura's living arrangement – all will be revealed in due time! All of those things that you pointed out are very valid; but please have some patience and bear with me, as I planned to explore all of that later on Thirdly, Sakura is the one administering to the hospital because she is the director of it. She has been put in charge of it for a reason; It's kind of like the fact that Shizune is Tsunade's assistant – and a very busy one at that – yet Tsunade still has a mountainous load of work to do as Hokage, you know? That kind of goes hand-in-hand with your Sakura needing a secretary thing. Also, this is post-Fourth Shinobi War (it has been a few years since the war, though) and medics were already rare as it is; therefore, Sakura would need to pull longer shifts to make up for the lack of staff – that's what I've decided, at least! Please know that I appreciated everything that you pointed out, and hope you'll keep enjoying the story!